Pepper Design Blog

Whimsical Summer-Meets-Fall Outdoor Party

Yay! WordPress, the computer and internet connection are all playing friendly again. Turns out a plugin through wp was acting up, deactivating it set everything right.

But back to today’s post… it was just the other day that I was thinking about the coming of fall… the warm, cable-knit sweaters – the butternut squash and hearty chicken noodle soups that Kevin’s sure to ‘throw together’ – visiting pumpkin patches with friends, and then soon after the best holiday of all, Christmas.

But I’ll be the first to admit that I’m hesitant to let summer go. Oh the warm days! The beach trips (did I get in as many as I should have?) and the sundresses that will have to be stored away. And so, here’s to throwing a Summer-Meets-Fall party that marries the best of two great seasons.

The inspiration? Why this absolutely amazing soiree by Melanie Duerkopp and Stephanie Godfrey featured over at Hostess with the Mostess.

What this party does soooo right is the melding of bright summer pastels with the rich jewel tones of fall.

Love the burlap table cloth and LOVE the wooden ‘nests’ hanging in the trees. Looks a bit like the lanterns that I featured in my own bohemian picnic for San Diego Magazine (check it out here).

A closer look at the details:

Mmm! Delicious. Great job, ladies!

Office Makeover: Wallpapering Open Shelving

I drove up the coast of California to visit family this past weekend, but I managed to finish step 1 of making over the new credenza before taking off. As mentioned in this post, I found the perfect sized credenza for the new office (and all of that storage that we’ll need!) on Craigslist.

The plan was to paint, add paper to the open shelves and change out the hardware to give it a brand new look.

Once the piece was home and in the space though, I immediately knew that the painting portion of the project wouldn’t be necessary. Once out of direct sunlight, the rich walnut tones were beautiful. When paired with the lighter woods of the desk and bookshelves, the credenza’s color lived up to it’s mid-century modern shape (which is known for rich walnut stains) and was no longer as honey/yellowy as it appears in the above pictures.

The top of the credenza could use some love, and I considered sanding and restaining to see if I could get rid of a couple of stains from long ago. But when it came down to matching the color to the rest of the piece, I knew that restaining could open a bag of worms that might have led to redoing the entire credenza. So we’ll leave it as-is for now with the hope of one day really focusing on the nitty gritty details.

With painting crossed off of the list, I moved right along to wallpapering the open shelves.

The shelves were screaming for some attention. I’ve added fabric backing to shelves before and I love the look of a pop of pattern and color in an unexpected location, so I began searching for a wallpaper, wrapping paper or sheets of decorative paper (check out the selection at Paper Source) that were large enough to line the back of these shelves without seams.

I settled on this wallpaper from Lowe’s because it has just the right amount of subtle color/pattern to work with a variety of future fabrics that we haven’t quite settled on for the room.

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Applying Decorative Paper to Shelves

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Materials: decorative paper (wallpaper, wrapping paper, handmade paper…), glue stick(s), straight edge, ruler, knife, scissors

{1.} Carefully measure each ‘wall’ of your bookshelf/credenza and cut paper to fit. I’m glad I had an entire roll of wallpaper, I had to recut several times, definitely buy 50% more than you anticipate using because of silly and unforeseen mistakes! I would have hated to have halted the project to run down to the store for more paper. Because the inside of this credenza has varied levels for different shelves, I opted to only line the most inset points. Once the shelf is back in place, I think that that will provide the cleanest look.

{2.} In my search for a non-permanent adhesive, I settled on a glue stick (the standard, kid’s crafts version). I could have pulled out the wallpapering glue from this project or even used double sided tape – but my goal was to have edges that wouldn’t roll up over time and to still create an adhesion that would allow me to replace the paper with a new pattern some time down the road. Cover your paper liberally with the gluebefore adding to the walls of your shelves (but don’t wait too long between applying glue and sticking up or you’ll have extra creases and bubbles).

{3.} I used a plastic triangle from my husband’s architectural-supply box for school (though a wallpapering broad knife or smoother – even a standard ruler – would have done the trick) to smooth the paper firmly against the walls of the credenza as I slowly added the sheets of wallpaper. Moving out from one corner across the paper provided the best results and the least amount of bubbles to ‘smooth out’.

{4.} Use a utility knife to clean up any edges that are not directly up against your corners… and then repeat until all walls (and the ceiling) are lined!

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Next step is finding some neat hardware to replace the older brass pulls. I’m on the hunt.

More visual inspiration of paper backed shelves from this way-back-when post!

For more Office Makeover posts, check out: finding the perfect credenza, new trim, dining table-to-desk, a new desk & bookshelves, installing remnant carpeting, grasscloth wallpaper, painting the office nook, finding carpet for the office, chocolate brown wall ideas, plastering progress,  inspiration for a diy desk, back in action!, desking hunting for under $300, bookcases under $300, inspirational rooms, room layout options, demo part 1 & demo part 2.

Office Makeover: DIY Headboard + A New Guest Bed

Despite the drywalling, plastering, painting, wallpapering, carpet installation, furniture moving and moulding projects that have consumed the new office/guestroom over the past month, we’ve managed to fit in not one but three sets of guests! It’s great to put that new room to use.

I’m not going to lie… my parents (1) helped sort through boxes while they were here, my in-laws (2) had to deal with piles of books, magazines and office supplies during their visit – and our more permanent guest (my brother – 3) who just moved to San Diego and is a student looking for housing at the moment – has had to officially relocate from guestroom to couch three or four times to accommodate a handful of projects, including this one.

But it all started about a month ago… anticipating the arrival of family, I sat down to do a bit of research on beds and what was the most economical/comfy solution for our visitors.

In the end, we purchased a mattress from Costco and a basic platform bed from West Elm to pair with my diy fabric headboard from last year. As you can tell from the pile of boxes as the night stand, the room is still very much in-progress!

I try and space out purchasing furniture for a new room so that it can be budgeted over the course of months or even a year. Pieces that I know that we’ll need are easy to buy in advance – such as this bed. Purchasing the bed in June meant we could add the mattress in July! We considered several different room layouts a while back, including the possibility of a daybed that would have left us with more floor space, but in the end the double won out. Our guests often come in pairs and we think that even a small full is comfier than a seamed bed or a trundle.

The contenders included South Shore’s Gravity Bed ($179), West Elm’s Narrow-Leg Frame ($224 on sale), Leggett & Platt’s platform bed ($169.50 on sale) and Ikea’s ENGAN bed ($149). We ultimately chose the West Elm narrow-leg bed frame because of a merchandise credit and an awesome sale – but if it had come down to just the dollars, I would have happily scooped up that ENGAN Ikea bed with those great metal legs!

I knew the platform bed was the way to go for us because I had been dying to use a fabric headboard that I had made from an old Craigslist find last year:

You can read all about the makeover here, but the quick and dirty:

The only unfortunate part? The fabric headboard is for a queen sized bed and it is quite large on the new full sized frame.

Ignore that random cable poking itself out of the wall on the left side. We still have plenty of cat5 Ethernet cables to rewire ’round here. See what I mean about the wide headboard? I’m hoping large shams and poufy comforter covers will hide the issue, though it feels pretty pronounced right now. Hmmm…. white or tan for the bedding? Or maybe something colorful?

As for purchasing a full instead of a queen? You can probably already tell from the photos but the guestroom portion of this space is a tight squeeze and a full fills the space without overcrowding it. Couples will have to cuddle, but we think the bed is still big enough to offer sweet dreams.

I adore the headboard in the new room. There’s a reason it’s been patiently waiting over 15 month for its home… by the way the fabric is Luxor Silver and it’s currently on sale over at Calico Corners. I love the simple pattern and colors, and I love how cozy it looks against the chocolate brown walls.

A great and affordable fabric headboard resources – for the non-crafters – is: MoreHeadboards.com ($199-349). Any big projects or great finds on your end?

For more Office Makeover posts, check out: ‘finishing’ with moulding, dining table-to-desk,  a new desk & bookshelves, installing remnant carpeting, grasscloth wallpaper, painting the office nook, finding carpet for the office, chocolate brown wall ideas, plastering progress,  inspiration for a diy desk, back in action!, desking hunting for under $300, bookcases under $300, inspirational rooms, room layout options, demo part 1 & demo part 2.